| Women For Afghan Women cared for Bibi Aisha for ten months in our Kabul shelter and then for a year in the U.S. In November 2011, Bibi Aisha decided to move to the home of an Afghan family. WAW wishes Aisha happiness and a bright future with her new family. |
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We are pleased to report that Aisha recently moved to the home of an Afghan family, who are caring for her as if she were their own daughter. They have expedited her political asylum case and have taken charge of her health care, education, and all other needs. Aesha is very happy with her new family. WAW is very proud of the care we took of Aisha for almost year in Afghanistan and then for over a year in New York. Our attention to Aisha's physical and emotional health, her social life, her education (She is now speaking, reading and writing English!) stabilized her emotionally and prepared her for this transition. We are very grateful to the family. They will prepare her for the next phase of her life. All of us who cared for Aisha (WAW staff and board, the tutors, roommates, psychiatrists and other medical professionals, all those individuals from within and outside the community who took her on regular outings--to the theatre, the movies, the circus, and museums--miss Aisha very much. She was quite a mainstay in our community. Aisha knows that she will always be a part of the WAW family.
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Bibi Aisha has been making good progress in New York. She has been learning English, and can hold forth in a very basic English conversation quite competently. We celebrated Aisha's 21st birthday recently, with a small gathering attended by her friends, caregivers and tutors. After cutting cake and feeding a piece to each of her guests, Aisha made a spontaneous speech in which she thanked us all for being there for her and pledged to be speaking English fluently by her next birthday. She also said she hoped that this time next year her surgery would be behind her. WAW has ensured that Aisha is keeping up her regular appointments with her medical doctor, phychiatrist and therapist, all of whom donate their services. Aisha also visits with a local Imam every week and this had been important for her. WAW has partnered with the organization Human Rights First to help Aisha apply for legal asylum in the United States. We hope that she will be given asylum in the months to come. While Aisha seems more stable and well, we are advised by her medical caregivers that it will still be a while before she is ready for reconstructive surgery.